We offer a full design service here at Copy Express, your\u2019s truly being one of the designers, but in the true kiwi tradition of \u2018giving a go\u2019 a lot of people like to try their hand at designing things by themselves. For those novice designers, this article is for you; a quick guide to help you avoid the common mistakes that every learner makes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you are reading this blog article then you\u2019re already on the Copy Express website. Part of this website’s system is an integrated desktop publishing software. It\u2019s set up already for designing print ready files for our most common products (and the range is being added to all the time.) Just select a product, scroll to the bottom of the screen, click on the custom design button, and you\u2019ll be taken to the design studio. Depending on the product we also have a large range of ready made templates to which you can choose from as a starting point for your design, and they are all free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t want to use our design studio software, that\u2019s alright. We also have a range of templates you can download instead. You can also download a range of templates from the internet too from various sources (far too many to list here.) Many computer applications come with a selection of ready made templates for use. There are a few things you need to be aware of before you grab that template. Make sure they are designed for your software, or have a version for your software. Many templates aren\u2019t designed for NZ standard size (most often are configured for the US formats of paper.) If the templates are from a commercial stock image supplier or online design service, you will have to buy the print ready version to use and many come with limits of where you can use them or how many prints you can make before you have to relicense them again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Depending on the work being printed we will confirm with you if you want to use a non metric size for your printing before we start. This is because certain sizes found in US templates don\u2019t work within our standard printing sizes. For example half US Letter is 140mm x 215mm in size making it taller and thinner than A5\u2019s 148mm x 210mm. Depending on the size of your template we can: print at that size but not fit as many on the printing sheet so we have to charge you more per flyer, or scale it down to fit within the metric size and trim off the unprinted parts. If you\u2019re unsure contact us first and we can work with you to find the best solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s the quick table of the common paper sizes and what you will need to put in your computer if your preferred program doesn\u2019t list the size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just add 0.5 cm to each measurement of your page and set your margins to 0.8 cm on every side and you will have a document with 0.25cm bleed all sides and everything important 0.5cm from the edges of the finished document. All you have to do then is stretch out what you want as the background to fill the new page so none of the blank page shows. For example, to make an A6 flyer, set your page size to 11cm \u00d715.3cm with 0.8cm margins, send that pdf to us and we will give you back the perfect A6 flyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not a problem, we can just scale it to fit the nearest standard paper size. Modern slideshow templates are made for 16×9 widescreen tvs, the older ones are formatted 4×3 tube style tv. Most photos are a 3:2 ratio. So how do we make it work? If you want your printing the same sort of size as an A5 flyer that\u2019s 21cm x 14.8cm, a 16×9 widescreen file will print at 21cm x 11.8cm, 4×3 slide will be printed as 19.7cm x 14.8cm, and a 6×4\u201d photo scales to 21cm x 14cm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Setting standard sizes when it comes to type can be a bit of a challenge, as what works for one font family won\u2019t for another. There are a few common rules that seem to work with every font to give a good look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to use an image from the internet in your design you need the biggest one you can find to make sure you get the best looking print. If you are using the image search in Google, click on the search tool button and where it says \u2018size\u2019 click on it and select large. Using Bing\u2019s image search, where it says \u2018size\u2019 click on it and choose \u2018extra large\u2019. When using stock photo \/ image sites, go for the largest you can find, the commercial ones will say how large the image can be printed as part of the sizing. A better way to get the best images for print is going to the various image sites. There are both plenty of free and paid sites that will not always supply you with much higher quality images, but you have the licence to use it, which you might not if you just grab them out of the search engine results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While there\u2019s a bit of art to figure out how big you can make an internet image, we do have a basic rule of thumb that can help. If you want the image to be passable, divide the number of horizontal and vertical pixels by 8 to give you how many millimetres it will be. Take the same image and divide each side by 12 and that\u2019s how large it can be for photo quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An image 1920 x 1080pixels in size:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t use spaces to align text, use the tab key [Tab \u2b7e] to insert extra spaces. Tabs automatically line up items on every line to the same point no matter how many characters are in each block of text. Another way is to use tables, just like one I used to set up the paper guide. Use [\u21e7 Shift] + [\u21b5 Enter\/Return] together to start on a new line but keep it with the previous one so they are part of the same paragraph. Need to put text on a new page, don\u2019t just keep adding more lines as most programs let you use [Control] + [\u21b5 Enter] to start on a new page. Need newspaper style columns but your application doesn\u2019t support text columns. Use a table of one row and as many columns as you need, and insert text and images inside the cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wanting to do a double sided or multi page document like a book or folded leaflet. Let us worry about how to set everything up, just create every page or side in the order you want it to be read. Do not try and lay it out in what you think the page spreads are going to be as the systems we use handle that automatically and can allow for the special factors that can affect how your book looks when we print them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to create a brochure that\u2019s a sheet folded in half or thirds there are three ways to go about it. First way is to make a document that is several pages setup at the folded size. For example to make A5 folded to A6 you can set up four A6 pages and put the content in reading order. To make an A4 folded in to DL, you\u2019ll need six DLs (99x210mm). If you want to spread content across the folds most design programs have the ability to add rulers or guides, what you need to do is not just put the rulers where the folds are but add internal margins to match the outer ones. So if you are making the A5 folding to A6 with a 5mm outer margin then the center margin must be twice the size of the outer margin or 10mm so it looks even when folded. The third option is to use text columns. Text columns allow you to set their width and gaps between them. Divide the page up with the number of columns that match the number of pages when folded, and the gaps between are twice the size of the outer margins for a balanced look. For A4 folded into DL, with an outer margin of 5mm you set a text block that has columns with the width of 89mm and gaps between 10mm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is just a starting point to help you, the novice designer, get going and avoid the common issues that can trip you up. If you still have problems, there are more articles on this website that cover specific issues and how to deal with them, or explain a particular style of printed product in more detail. Also you can rely on us to help you out if you have problems, we are just a phone call or email away. In the end if you do find it all too much, you can pass the job on to us and we can do the little finishing touches that make it work at a low cost to you. That\u2019s what Copy Express is all about, your partner for printing and marketing who is there to give you the help you need only when you need it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We offer a full design service here at Copy Express, your\u2019s truly being one of the designers, but in the true kiwi tradition of \u2018giving a go\u2019 a lot of people like to try their hand at designing things by themselves. For those novice designers, this article is for you; a quick guide to help … Continue reading “Design Basics: 12 helpful tips for novice designers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,97,110,75],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1443"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1447,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions\/1447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Use For<\/span><\/strong><\/td> Size<\/span><\/strong><\/td> Compared to an A4 <\/span><\/strong><\/td> Long Edge in CM<\/span><\/strong><\/td> Short Edge in CM<\/span><\/strong><\/td><\/tr> Business Card<\/span><\/td> NZ<\/span><\/td> 1\/10<\/span><\/td> 9<\/span><\/td> 5.5<\/span><\/td><\/tr> Small Flyer<\/span><\/td> A6<\/span><\/td> 1\/4<\/span><\/td> 14.8<\/span><\/td> 10.5<\/span><\/td><\/tr> Small Flyer<\/span><\/td> DL<\/span><\/td> 1\/3<\/span><\/td> 21<\/span><\/td> 9.9<\/span><\/td><\/tr> Large Flyer<\/span><\/td> A5<\/span><\/td> 1\/2<\/span><\/td> 21<\/span><\/td> 14.8<\/span><\/td><\/tr> Flyer \/ Poster<\/span><\/td> A4<\/span><\/td> 1<\/span><\/td> 29.7<\/span><\/td> 14.8<\/span><\/td><\/tr> Poster<\/span><\/td> A3<\/span><\/td> x2<\/span><\/td> 42<\/span><\/td> 29.7<\/span><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Want to add bleed to any printed item?<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Accidentally used slide show or photo sizes for your designs instead of metric standard sizes?<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Common font sizes<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How to get the best images for printing off the internet<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How big can you print an internet image and have it still look good<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Formatting shortcuts for text<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Setting up documents with more than one page or side<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Making a folding document<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n